Page 34
Many racers gather outside with us, wondering why they can’t go in the doors near the alien zoo. I try to wait patiently, but when I hear a crash, I push past the guards. They try to grab me. But a fear I can’t quite explain moves me faster than them.
Inside the creatures’ tour area, through an open personnel door, I see a hulking purple male lean over, grab something, and turn toward a faintly crackling ring of light. I ease closer and see him hauling my limp mate through a portal.
“Aura!” I charge inside, sprinting with everything I have across the room, straining to get to him before he’s gone.
The male dragging him off glares back at me, and I have no doubt he’s the one I saw earlier. My mate, my gorgeous purple alien prince—my hope—vanishes before I can get to him. All I’m left with is one pained glance back at me and the apology in his green eyes.
I can’t slow myself fast enough as the portal sputters out and slam into the back wall. In my frustration, I rear back and punch the metal. Pain flares in my right hand.
Of course, I don’t get to have him. It was all too good to be true. Inside, I’m simultaneously tearing apart from the pain of being so close and losing him and combusting with anger that someone else wants to control my man.
“Jojo!”
I wheel around to find a familiar dog-shaped RAM in the doorway.
“Eleven, what are you doing here?”
“Watching over you. But now Talros is in trouble. Someone has taken him.”
“Someone just took Aura. We need to find Blaize and the others. They’ll know what to do.”
“Blaize?” RAM-11 cocks his head, his pointed ears twitching. “Follow me. We must avoid Abr staff. I managed to lock them out when you entered. But their team is fast and will find a workaround soon.”
I stay close as he leads me through a back corridor, passing coded entry points with a simple wag of his tail over the scanner. “So are you going to tell me how you got here?”
RAM-11 leads me through another door and up a set of stairs. He hops up them to the next level, then replies, “I came over on a security transport just before the women began to arrive.”
“So you’ve been hiding here longer than I’ve been here?” I ask.
The door to the next level opens, and RAM-11 folds up into the shape of a turbo coil for a hoverthruster. I slam to a stop. “RAM?”
A guard walks out, jolts back when he sees me, then looks down. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, shit. I’m definitely in trouble now. “ Damn .”
I pick up RAM-11 and pull a lie out of my ass. “Sorry, got winded after all the excitement and dropped this. I work on engines, and my mate needed a part repaired for his ship. Got some space junk damage. So I just wanted to return the part.”
He looks me over. “Aurelius, right? With the Orillium?”
I nod.
“Thought she was a living thing, not a standard mech vessel.”
Screw! I frantically try to remember what Aura told me. “Allele has a Storm but also a ship husk as her vessel. You and I get bone and flesh. We have mitochondria, actin, and myosin. She has turbo coils, thrusters, and ailerons.”
He steps aside. “Alright. Just be quick. There’s been portal activity somewhere on the base. When you’re finished, please return to your quarters ASAP while we sort out the disturbance.”
“Understood.” But when I step inside the hangar access wing, I don’t know which of the many doors in the loop belongs to Aurelius’ ship.
“Everything okay?” the guard asks in passing.
“Just tired.” I feign a smile and am grateful when Blaize pokes his head out of a hangar at the end.
“Jovie, thank the stars.” He rushes toward me.
I give him a look that I hope he understands. He doesn’t say anything else. He just looks at what I’m carrying and motions me up the ramp. I hesitate, having not been on Allele before, especially carrying a RAM.
“Allele?” I call out.
“Hello, Jovie. You are welcome aboard, Lightbringer. Please let me scan the part.” She closes the ramp.
Lightbringer? I touch my face and remember the markings are still there.
Blaize and Eluni are in the back of the vessel, which looks organic in nature.
Allele’s metal trusses swoop around me in cellular shapes, and her walls are a milky pearl.
Slow green pulses shimmer up the hallway like ripples in a pond. “Wow. Beautiful.”
“You may set RAM-11 down now,” Allele says.
“You know about him?”
“I am aware of all AI forms in the area. He has been feeding me useful data. Please strap in. We must leave immediately.”
“Does this mean I get to join you?”
Jorusk looks back at me from the copilot’s seat with flaming red eyes. Fieri, beside him, looks like he’s planning to kill someone.
“Yes,” Eluni says. “And don’t mind the devil and his advocate. They just usually look like that.”
“Oh.”
She encourages me up to the cockpit to sit behind Jorusk.
“Are we going to get Aura?”
“First, we free Talros,” Allele remarks. “He isn’t far. Then we’re going after Aura.”
Stars, Tal. What did you get yourself into?
Blaize takes a seat across the aisle from Eluni and me. “The portal that opened is one of our own. We don’t know which ship they’ve taken Aura to, but we have informants throughout the fleet who are sending us updates.”
“Fieri of Amphir, Abr Port Security, you are not cleared for launch.”
“Well, hurry it the fuck up! My Protected has an emergency back home.”
“I can safely launch us,” Allele remarks.
“No.” Fieri taps through the controls, easing our momentum. “We cannot afford another intergalactic incident. A prince abducted by his own people from the races will be bad enough if word gets out. Did you say anything, Jovie?”
“No. RAM locked the guards out. But there was a cameradrone in there, smashed to bits. I can’t say what it captured.”
“Allele?” Blaize asks.
“Working on it.” A screen beside us illuminates, showing Aura rescuing the meratadon and noticing the door was left open.
“I bet that was Pronkus,” Eluni remarks. “He always takes the missions where he has to collect Royals and for punishment. Loves setting little traps like that. Plays to our true nature and then captures us when our guard is down.”
“Had a run-in with him?” Fieri asks.
“Once or twice.”
When Abr gives us the all-clear, Fieri launches us fast. “By the way, Jovie is staying with us.”
“You can’t do that,” the security officer retorts.
I strain against my belt. “I consent. Can you tell him I consent?”
The com opens again. “Understood, Jovie Nevaté. Please contact us if you require assistance returning to Earth. I will inform the head of Abr.”
“Thanks.” I swing around in my harness as we race through the lunar shield and clutch the shoulder straps, trying to steady myself and wrap my head around the idea that I’m in an alien ship, in space, on a double-rescue mission.
“Where’s Tal?” I ask.
“Denarso took him.” Eluni offers me a hand. “First time?”
I swallow against my nervousness and nod.
“Deep breaths. Lean with the ship any time you can. We’re going to get them both back.”
“How can you be sure?” I ask.
Jorusk glances back at us. “We are few compared to the masses that are choosing to follow Aura. The trick is going to be rescuing him without causing civil war.”
Table of Contents
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- Page 34 (Reading here)
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